Madison Mini-Marathon and arbitrary numbers

Yesterday I laced up for the Madison Mini-Marathon.  I'm not very good at tapering.  Really, there is no tapering that exists for me.  I get to the long run and then just stop running any distance over 5 miles.  It's more of a drop off.  I try to help this by doing my long run only about 2 weeks out from the race, but how much it actually helps is debatable.

After the 10 mile long run on a Sunday two weeks ago, I've only ran a 5k race, two 4 mile runs, and then a 6 mile run this past Wednesday.  I kept up with the yoga and did some biking, but made myself do no exercise whatsoever on Friday.

Yesterday morning, I got up and got on the scale and clocked in at my heaviest.  Ugh, I thought.  Recently, I've been thinking some about this number on the scale and my difficulty in letting it go.  I've gotten better at not dwelling on the number, but I still have to mentally justify that number each time I step on the scale.  Even though I feel healthy and fit, I still struggle with just letting the scale be what it is. 

Race starts at 7am, and I was supposed to meet Barry at 6am at his place to ride downtown together.  I set the alarm for 5:15, and slowly rolled out of bed.  I spent a good 10 minutes dousing myself in sunscreen, trying my best to reach my back without any help.  After digging around for running clothes, I made a cup of tea and only had about half of it before I went out the door with a granola bar in hand.  At 6:02, I was in my car on Barry's driveway.  Barry was running later than me, so I munched on my granola bar and sipped water to make sure I was well hydrated.  We got downtown about 6:25am and parked at a metered spot, deciding to risk a ticket.  Thankfully, it was easy to find a parking spot downtown despite how close it was to race start.

I don't own a running watch.  People ask sometimes how do I know how fast I'm going.  I tell that that I usually just listen to my body.  I aim to push in training and my body tells me when it's too much.  So when I formulate race strategies, it's more of a mental game and throughout the race, it's a constant loop in my head of "remember the miles to go".  For this race, I debated starting with the 2:00 group or the 2:10 group.  Since I was in Corral G, only the 2:10 pacers were in my corral, so I decided to start a bit behind them and to aim to chase down the 2:00 pacers.  Barry had plans of dropping out of the race or to walk for large chunks of the second half.  I wasn't sure what he was going to do, but I knew that running with him is always a bad idea for me.  He's like the watch that I don't need when I want to stay tuned in to how my body is feeling.  I resolve to ignore where he is when the gun goes off.

The race starts and my legs feel fatigued already, but I catch up to the 2:00 pacers pretty quickly.  At this point, I know I'm running sub-9:00 min miles to have caught up to 2:00 pacers about 2 miles in.  But I'm feeling good despite a nagging fatigue in my legs, so I maintain pace and run with the 2:00 group for a while.  I get a little bit ahead of them in anticipation of the water stops, but somewhere around mile 4, I'm feeling really good and I get pretty far ahead of the 2:00 group.  I know they're behind me, but I'm not sure where.  I walk through every water stop.  At this point, I'm resolving to not let the 2:00 group pass me until mile 8.  We get to mile 8, and my pace has slowed.  I know the distance between me and the 2:00 group is shortening when I hear spectators cheer the 2:00 pacers just as we exit the Arboretum.

Right before mile 9 marker is Cemetery Hill.  This was a daunting, daunting hill.  We went up at a sharp incline, leveled for a bit, and then went up some more.  A lot, a lot of people around me were walking at this point and I aim to just make it up the hill.  The hill took a lot out of me and not too long after, the 2:00 pacers pass me.  I keep them in sight though, and slowly recover enough to catch up to them again.  By mile 11, when we turned onto Lakeshore Path, I'm shadowing the 2:00 pacers, and there is hardly anyone around them.  Either everyone's found their legs and managing to stay well ahead of them, or they're lost the 2:00 group.  I know I've got a little bit of a cushion having started behind the 2:00 pacers, but I have no idea how much.  Knowing I'm near the end and almost done keeps my speed up.  When we get to the Memorial Union, I hear the pacers say to each other how they try to tell those in their group to hurry up ahead of them to guarantee a sub-2:00.  I wasn't expecting to have any speed left in me, but when we round that final corner, I catch up to and pass the 2:00 pacers.  I hear them say they've got 40 seconds to cross the finish and make sub-2:00 and they are right on target with their time.  The finish is downhill and I sped down that faster than I had imagined possible at that point.  I felt good despite the blister that I knew had formed around mile 10. 

1:58:47 was my final time.  Sub-2:00 was a PR that I've been chasing for about 2 years now.  I'm happy to have gotten there, but the thrill of achieving a PR is not what it used to be.  I noticed this after the Full Moon 5k.  It was a great PR, but it was mostly just another race.  We attach more importance to reaching a sub-2:00 time, but the difference between a 1:59 and a 2:02 is the same as 2:02 and 2:05.  It's just the difference between a good race day and a bad race day.  Ultimately, I'm still just a 2:00 half marathoner.  

But numbers are useful for lines in the sand and setting a goal.  I'd like to run sub-2:00's consistently and see times closer to a 1:55.